Producers to receive Sh 14 million as Government fires warning to pirates : The Standard

The government will no longer rate films and music that are pirated and those involved in piracy will face the full force of the law, Kenya film Classification Board CEO Ezekiel Mutua has said. Dr Mutua committed to protecting the right of artistes to earn from the sweat of their brow in an operation that will involve the Kenya Copyright Board and the law enforcers. "In the Skiza tunes change it to say that it gives the impression that majority of Kenyans want clean content. The narrative that content has to be dirty to sell is a fallacy. It's misleading and entirely an agenda of perverts who want to ruin our moral fabric," said Dr. Mutua. He cited a survey by the Board that shows that 70 per cent of Kenyans want clean content.

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The numbers could be more but a baseline survey done by KFCB recently shows that 90 per cent of Kenyans want regulation of content to remove vulgar and obscene content out of the watershed period To solidify his argument he cited Skiza tunes used on mobile phones and disclosed that out of the top twenty earning Skiza tunes 18 of them are Gospel songs. Dr Mutua also encouraged Kenyans to buy original music because that is the only way they would be guaranteed of continued good music and film. He was speaking at a retreat for officials of three newly accredited Content Management Organisations at the Simba Lodge, Naivasha.

Speaking at the same event, the Kenya Copyright Board Executive Director Edward Sigei assured Kenyans that the new CMOs will be true to the interest of performing and recording artistes.

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“We have a binding commitment with the CMOs to pay 70 per cent of all they collect and only use 30 per cent for management and logistics,” he said. He was allaying fears that in the past CMOs have squandered most of artistes’ collections paying them pittance. Performers Rights Society of Kenya (PRISK) Board Chairman Ephantus Kamau has reached out to hotel owners, public transport operators, online content distributors and other consumers of music to cooperate with the CMOs so as to give musicians their due monies. His counterpart Japheth Kassanga who is the new Chairman of  the Music Copyright Society of Kenya termed the new office a new dawn for musicians and he committed to live up to the expectations of registered members.

“We are ready to shed our past and from now on things will be different,” he assured.

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The Kenya Association of Music Producers (KAMP) Chairman Anthony Murimi noted that with the three CMOs the work of sensitization and mobilization has become lighter and more efficient. Kenya Copyright Board and Kenya Film Classification Board have entered into a partnership to work together towards fighting piracy in the country. They are working together to train Board members of the licensed Collective Management Organisations on good corporate governance. During the two day workshop funded by KFCB it was announced by Mr Timothy Mutinda the Administration Manager at KAMP that over Sh 14 million will be distributed in July from KAMP alone.
According to statistics from PWC research in 2017 Kenyan media and entertainment market was worth 210 billion.

Related Topics

Alfred MutuaKenya film Classification BoardSkiza tunes